Val’s P.O.V

I surfaced from the depths of sleep like a diver breaching a sun-dappled impossibly warm sea. Not gasping, but thrumming. It had been seven months since I had been touched, and the past couple of hours had unlocked the charm again. A low, resonant vibration pulsed through my core, radiating outwards to my fingertips, my toes, the sensitive skin behind my knees. Three hours. Barely a blink. Yet I felt utterly remade.

Beside me, Jax lay sprawled, a mountain range sculpted in ...